Up
by Yemi Hikari
Summary: Another normal day at the hospital which serves the island village starts off like normal for Tae and Saika but doesn't change much either when the new person to the island is brought in.


_Disclaimer – I don't own Barakomon. This was written for a fanfic contest run by Shreya_VA where we were given the basic description for two characters and told to run with it. That's why the story ended up focusing on OCs instead of the canon characters._

**Up**

There weren't many patients who came to the hospital which served the island village which in turn left the student nurse and the young medical intern who were assigned to the hospital plenty of time to gossip, or at least Nagao Saika found herself chatting away at the latest village gossip while her friend Hamano Tae listened. Nagao always spoke with her voice lowered lest the head nurse came by and reprimanded her, yet the doctor seemed quite pleased with her optimism and praised her for this trait.

"Did you hear?"

"I hear a lot of things Saika." The young medical intern sat filing her nails during their downtime. When she first came to the hospital the head nurse attempted getting her to stop but soon found Tae's obsession with filing her nails down for the purpose of cleanliness preferable to telling Saika off for wearing too much makeup to an environment which was meant – in the head nurse's mind – to be sterile.

"A new person came to the island."

"And?"

"And, he's a…" Saika stopped gossiping when the doors opened so a patient might be brought in. Her eyebrows which she penned on shot up as she took in the face of the young man being carried in.

Tae let out a sigh and stood up so she might join the doctor and the other medical intern while the normally outgoing Saika lifted a paper in front of her face. Tae opened her mouth slightly knowing Saika was looking at Hiraoka Tadasu, yet clamped it shut knowing full well the nurse in training didn't want Tae letting people know she had a crush on the new medical intern.

In truth, she was surprised she'd not given this away. Dr. Aoki spoke in a rather candid manor when she approached. "So. Our patient was brought in from exhaustion. He wasn't caring for himself, but is lucky someone in the village found him."

Of course, Tae couldn't help but notice how handsome the young man has yet kept her emotions in check until she went back to her station for a brief period before having to make her rounds. She didn't notice Saika's eyes widen. "You have a crush on the new guy."

The sing-song tone of Saika's voice made Tae turn and look at her best friend while her jaw drop. She found herself stammering slightly. "What. What do you mean…"

"By the way. I heard he is some kind of famous calligrapher or something like that. Don't you like your poetry Tae? Maybe this is the one?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Yeah. These crushes of yours don't last long."

"That's because something always goes wrong." Tae's head shot up while she watched Saika scribble something down. "Please tell me you're not using the potential for a relationship as fodder for your newest story on… what was the name of that site?"

"Wattpad."

"Yes. It's embarrassing."

"Come on Tae. All of these crushes of yours make for wonderful ideas for…"

"Are you two working?"

"Yes, mam." Saika glanced up at the head nurse with a bright smile on her face. "We were talking about the new patient."

"I see." The head nurse turned at left while Saika breathed a sigh of relief.

"Anyways, dating a patient…"

"Maybe once he's _not_ a patient?"

A slight blush spread across Tae's cheeks despite her normally calm exterior. She looked Saika in the eye. "Please. Stop teasing me."

Of course, like all of her other crushes said crush on one Handa Seishu didn't last long. A small child around the age of seven came to visit him and she found herself sitting down in a chair. Saika glanced up upon seeing her friend return from her rounds. "What's wrong?"

"He has a child."

"Are you sure?"

Of course, she didn't have any proof the little girl was his, but she quickly assumed this was the case. She wasn't interested in children at this point in time due to the fact she was simply twenty-three. She let out a deep breath. "Plus, he's a trouble patient. I doubt that would be a good relationship, but I think this is why they say not to have relations with patients."

"Come on. He's being discharged…"

"Doesn't matter."

Saika shook her head. "Well, at least my story will end happily."

"You are using it as inspiration!"

The only response from her nineteen-year-old friend that Tae got was giggling at her plight. Tae smiled knowing things like this kept her friend from going into one of her bouts of depression. Today was a good day.


End file.
